columnist david brooks, sociologist michael eric dyson and the president of the american federation of teachers randi weingarten. from nbc news in washington, the world's longest running television program, this is "meet the press" with david gregory. >> good sunday morning on a very difficult day for a small town in connecticut and for the entire country as we all grieve over the loss of life at sandy hook elementary. this morning we're getting a first look at the names and faces of some of the victims, 20 schoolchildren, 8 boys, 12 girls, all first graders and the six adults who died trying to protect them, including this heartbreaking video of a 6-year-old ana marquez-green singing a hymn with her brother last summer. ♪ >> president obama will travel to newtown this afternoon to console victims' families and

attend a community vigil. the both of headline this morning sums up where we are nearly 48 hours after the shooting, wrenching details but few answers. that's where we want to start this special hour this morning here with our justice correspondent, nbc's pete williams, on what more we are learning about this investigation, and, pete, do we know more about why it happened? >> no, i don't think we do, and i think, of course, i don't think we can ever get a satisfactory answer. there is no satisfactory answer to this, such a monstrous act. there's some hope that the evidence in the house where he was killed, where he killed his mother, we believe, will help illuminate what was in his mind. he had a computer there, and they are analyzing that to see what they can get out of it. >> what can you tell us now about a lot of conflicting information about what happened and the scenario? >> the scenario starts friday morning when he takes his mother's gun, purchased them legally. this is a woman who grew up in rule new hampshire, comfortable with guns, liked them. killed her and takes three of the guns to the school. drives there in her car.

forces his way in apparently by shattering a window. they had a buzzer system and so he defeated that by forcing his way in. the principal and the school psychiatrist, psychologist tried to stop him. he killed them, and then he concentrated his firepower on these two classrooms with devastating effect, and, david, i think the detail that was so shocking was that he used a -- an assault weapon, that's a term that bothers some people, but an assault-style weapon, kind of like combat -- >> a picture of it. >> a bushmaster .223, the same weapon that the washington snipers used ten years and shot these children several times, some as many as 10 and 11 times, so can you only imagine the devastating effect that that had. >> the shooter, adam lanza who took his own life, we have an older picture of him, the only pictures that exists. what more do you know about him? >> he had a very troubled life. this is a young man by all accounts had a mild form of alltism and was always a person of heart, never had any close

friends, never seemed to be a good fit anywhere. his mother took him in and out of school, home schooled him for a while. his parents got divorced. he stayed with his mother, but obviously the neighbors say and friends of hers say there was a great strain there. many of his classmates say that he -- unlike the other kids with backpacks, he always had a briefcase. he had trouble looking people in the eye. he had trouble fitting in or answering questions, so he was -- you know, it was a very difficult time for him and his mother. >> i would think in the days and weeks ahead, the immediate focus will be on what can be learned from the computers that they have taken from the mother's home about lanza. >> right. to see if he left behind anything that would explain his actions, but they tell us that there was no note, no letter, unlike some of these past school shootings where the people who committed them did leave detailed writings because they wanted people to know some message. >> and one other detail that struck me, you had a lockdown scenario in the school. he only visits this violence on

two of the classrooms. other teachers and the other children were all locked down in their classrooms or other places. >> and we don't know why he chose those two classrooms. earlier information that we chose a cross room where his mother taught kindergarten, a detail we still haven't nailed down. while it's clear she was never a full-time faculty member, there are some people who say at some time in the past she did volunteer at that school, but what the connection is, why that school, i think we still don't know. >> no other connection that he actually had to the school. >> that we know of. >> pete williams, thank you for your reporting. >> i want you to turn now to the congovernor dan malloy. welcome to "meet the press." i am profoundly sorry we're doing this interview this morning i have to ask you about the last 48 hours and what they have been like. can you describe it. >> sure. i received a call at our office that a shooting had taken place at a school here in newtown. once we understood at least a

portion what have happened, got in the car and proceeded down to newtown from hartford, and then, you know, hours went by, and ultimately had to break it to the families, about 20 of the families were represented in the room at the firehouse, that their loved one was not going to be joined with them, and that obviously was a tough moment for me and i think for everyone, and by the way, i shouldn't even say that. so much tougher for people who lost a wife or a child, but it was -- it's been a couple of -- a couple of tough days. >> what do you know now as we talked to pete williams about the investigation, do you have any more information that you're yet getting from your investigators that would explain why he targeted the school? why he went on this rampage at all? >> you know, as i think was stated, he had a relationship that the school had attended there. at least that's what i'm led to

believe, and -- and beyond that, no, we really don't know. this is a very deeply troubled individual. obviously you can't do the things that this individual did without any obvious motive, without having being greatly disturbed, and that's what happened. >> is there documented mental health history, governor, that you're now aware of? >> well, you know, it -- if you play the description that you -- that you already did on the show, i mean, this is not a person who maintained normal relationships, and i think, you know, there will be more time for stuff to come out and for us to understand more directly what was going on in this young person's life, but clearly he was mentally disturbed. >> the president is coming to visit and to -- to share in the grief and to try to console those in the community. where would you like the

national conversation to go in the most constructive direction now? >> well, you know, we're, unfortunately, a violent society. we have about 32,000, 33,000 deaths by use of a gun each year. about 18,000 of those are self-inflicted. i mean, there is a certain reality that if you have a gun in your home, the chances that that is going to be used against you or against a family member you know, that's what happens, and in this particular case someone decided to take those three guns and proceed to a school and literally slaughter people. >> would you like to see -- >> i think -- what would i like to see? i think there's certain problems that we have in our society that have to be addressed. we don't treat the mentally ill well. we don't reach out to families that are in trouble particularly well. we allow the assault weapons ban to lapse. there are lots of issues that need to be taken on as a society

and have a reasonable discussion about how we help families in trouble, how we make progress in treat being folks, how we intervene. having said all of that in our particular state we have laws that are probably more aggressive than most states. the mere presence of this kind of weapon means that this kind of weapon can be used in the way that it's been used here or have been used in other situations. >> governor, our thoughts and prayers are with you and with all of those families most directly affected by this. i really appreciate your time this morning. >> thank you. >> i want to turn now to the mayor of new york city, michael bloomberg. mr. mayor, thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> i wish it weren't under these circumstances. >> just tragedy, terrible. >> you have been an unspoken gun control advocate for many years, never more so than this morning, and we eel talk about that. first, i -- the "new york post," the morning after the slaughter

of innocents. describe your reaction when you saw this unfold. >> it's so unbelievable, and it only happens in america, and it happens again and again. there was another shooting yesterday. three people killed i think in a hospital. we kill people in schools. we've killed them in hospitals. we kill them in religious organizations. we kill them when they are young. we kill them when they are old, and we've just got to stop this. >> there is in this country incredible sadness, empathy, anger and a sense of resolve, and the president speaking after this horrible tragedy really gave voice to that friday afternoon. listen. >> we're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this regardless of the politics. >> a significant statement as far as it goes. you're calling for immediate action. what precisely? >> well, number one, i think the president should console the country, but he's the commander in chief as well as the consoler

in chief, and he calls for action, but he called for action two years ago, and every time there is a disaster like this, a tragedy like this, everybody says, well now is not the time, or if you had fixed the problem, you can't guarantee that this particular event would have been prevented. all of that is true. it's time for the president, i think, to stand up and lead and tell this country what we should do, not go to congress and say what you guys want to do, this should be his number one agenda. he's the president of the united states, and if he does nothing during his second term, something like 48,000 americans will be killed with illegal guns. that is roughly the number of americans killed in the whole vietnam war. >> so what do you do? >> well, there's a number of things that the president can do, and there are a number of things that congress can do, and there are a number of things that you and i can do as voters. what the president can do is,

number one, through executive action, he can order his agencies to -- to enforce the laws more aggressively. i think there's something like 77,000 people who have been accused of lying when they applied for a gun permit. he eve only prosecuted 77 of them. the president can introduce legislation even if it doesn't get passed. the president campaigned back in 2008 on a bill that would prohibit assault weapons. we've got to really question whether military-style weapons with big magazines belong on the streets of america in this day and age. nobody questions the second amendment's right to bear arms, but i don't think the founding fathers had the idea that every man, woman and child could carry an assault weapon, and i think the president, through his leadership, could get a bill like that through congress, but at least he's got to try. that's his job.

>> isn't it significant that -- that he may only be able to try, that we've seen declining support since 1990 for stricter gun control measures? we've seen the assault weapons ban come and go. tremendous political cost to democrats when they first got it passed. >> what's the political cost in the nra's number one objective this time was to defeat barack obama for a second term. last time i checked the election results, he won and he won comfortably. this myth that the nra can destroy political careers is just not true. >> it's not a myth that after the assault weapons ban was passed there was a huge political price for democrats to pay, and nearly 20 years later they don't want to touch the assault. >> it is true they lost a lot of seats then. the cause and effect isn't quite so clear, and what happened then isn't what happens now. if 27 people killed, 20 children isn't enough to change the mentality, the psyche, the desires of the american public, then what will? >> let talk about this,

mr. mayor. here's the reality. let's look at the weapons that were recovered from the scene of this disaster. >> sure. you have this bushmaster assault rifle. this would have been banned under the assault weapons ban. the pistols, the semiautomatic pistols, the .9 millimeters were recovered. the medical examiner says they were not used but this information could change and these were weapons that were found and legally purchased by his mother at her home. she lives in a rural area and when you have them for self-defense. this is what a lot of americans agree with. >> i can't tell you that if you stopped people who have psychiatric problems, who have criminal records, who have substance abuse problems who are minors. if you stopped every one of them from buying a gun, i can't promise you that this particular event wouldn't have taken place, but this particular event is just one of a series that happens again and again and again. and a big chunk of those would have been -- your argument is there's no reason to have speed limits because it wouldn't stop

that one person when the cops weren't around that they stepped on the peda. that's not true. the aggregate of all of this would be if -- if congress were to act, if congress wasn't so afraid of the nra, and i think -- i can show you that they have no reason to be, but if they were to stand up and do what was right for the american public, we'd all be a lot better off, and congress has the ability to do this. and the president in my view is the one who has to lead this. the president campaigned in '08 on an assault weapon ban, and the only gun legislation that the president has signed since then, one is the right to carry a gun in national parks where our kids play, and one is the right to carry guns on amtrak. i assume that's to stop the rash of train robberies which stopped back in the 1800s. this is ridiculous. >> did you talk to him about this before you endorsed him? >> he knows my views. i -- i didn't talk to the president or to mitt romney just before i decided to endorse

barack obama, and i said in my endorsement that i endorsed barack obama because i think his views on issues like this are the right views, but the president has to translate those views into action. his job is not just to be well meaning. his job is to perform and to protect the american public. >> there is, and i'm not advocating the position, but i'm playing devil's advocate, as you know, the position that after a tragedy like this the debate immediately seems to move in many quarters to gun control as opposed to looking at sort of wider causes. after the aurora shooting at the movie theater this summer, hi governor hickenlooper of colorado on the program, and he was making the point that, yes, he used an assault rifle, but had he not had that, he could have had a bomb. this is a portion of our conversation. >> i mean, if he couldn't have gotten access to the guns, what kind of bomb would he have manufactured? i mean, we're in a time of an information age where there's access to all kinds of

information, and he was diabolical, demonic in a twisted sense. i think of him almost as a terrorist. >> i don't think you can go to parents and say, i'm sorry, there's always going to be some crazy person so we as a society are not going to protect your children? you don't really mean that? and i'm -- i assume the governor didn't mean that. there's always going to be bad people, and there's always a way. you can strangle somebody with your hands. that doesn't mean that everybody should have an assault weapon. you're going from one thing to another. bottom line is, and people say -- the other thing they said after aurora was education. don't i remember that in the solution to all of this is to improve our educational system. i think that came out of both ends of pennsylvania avenue. my recollection is one of these guys was a phd student. another one at virginia tech was an engineering student. come on. this is not a panacea for all of society's problems. but this is one that's easy to

focus on. >> so how do you change the leadership dynamic? talk a little bit about your experience in new york where this year remarkably you've got the lowest crime rates since the '60s. >> i don't think it's remarkable because i think we're doing the right things. we have sensible gun laws. we have proactive policing, and we incarcerate people when they are dangers to society with tough punishment. >> there's also some of the searching methods that have been controversial and criticized. >> that's proactive policing. we focus our efforts where there is crime, and we make sure that the people who might commit those crimes know that there's a high probability that we will find them carrying weapons, and they will go to jail. we have the toughest gun laws in the country. three and a half-year mandatory sentence in jail, a state law, if you're found carrying an illegal loaded gun. all of those things scare people from carrying guns, but the

people they scare are not the hunters, not people who want guns to protect themselves in the homes, those things are guaranteed by the constitution and guaranteed by the supreme court. the supreme court also said that you can have reasonable restrictions. carrying guns on a college campus, for example, is one of the dumbest things i've ever heard of in my life. i don't remember what you were like when you were in college, but i shouldn't have had a gun when i was in college nor should anybody i know. we just don't need guns every place. we don't need people carrying guns in public places. that's not what the founding fathers had in mind. it doesn't add to anybody's safety. quite the contrary. it makes us have a much more dangerous society. >> how do you change the leadership dynamic? connecticut's got a very strong set of gun laws. an assault weapons ban that ironically did not cover the weapon used in this case apparently. they tried to limit the high capacity clips. >> okay. >> and they faced tremendous pressure and weren't able to do that, and they still have tough laws. how do you change the dynamic?

you say this does change it automatically. >> david, having tough laws is one thing and enforcing those laws is something different. a legislator's job is to come up with laws, to come up to agreements, get everybody into a room, form a bipartisan coalition, get everybody something. get the majority get the most of it. an executive's job is to make a decision. an executive's job is to go out and take the law and apply it and given the intent of the law. that's exactly what we do in new york. the fact that we have the lowest murder rate of any big city in the country says we know what we are doing and we have it every year. we have had a reduction in murder rate virtually every single year for the last 20 years. >> as the leader of a huge city in america, new york city, what about the role of other people, our mental health professionals, law enforcement officials. >> all have a place. >> what about gun owners and gun right supporters? what role do they have in this -- if there's to be a new dialogue? >> well, i think gun owners

really have spoken. when you do the polling, most gun owners think that an assault weapons ban makes sense in this day and age. that study has been done again and again by both democratic and republican pollsters, and the stroubl that the nri is just never willing to have any restriction whatsoever, no matter how reasonable it is. the supreme court fortunately was. they said having reasonable restrictions is consistent with the constitution. >> does that dynamic change now? does the nra have disproportionate power? you argued a moment ago they didn't have the power they once had in the presidential election. >> i'll give you an example. i'm not a kind of person to sit back and say, you know, the world is getting worse for my kids, and when i'm gone i don't care about their lives. i do care about their lives. i'm going to do everything i can while i'm alive to make the world a better place for my kids but also for society, and take a look one of the things they decided to do in this last

election was to support some candidates that were running against those that had great records with the nra, where the nra was putting their money into one side. i decided to put my money into the other sigh. >> joe baca in california, we won four out of seven where the nra supported every one of those four, and we won with a small amount of money. there is this myth that the nra is so powerful. you go back to what happened back when the democrats lost after the assault weapons ban. i don't know that the two are connected then, but today the nra's power is so vastly overrated. the public when you do the polls, they want to stop this carnage, and if 20 kids isn't enough to convince them, i don't know what would be. >> so the top priorities in terms of gun control as of today are to reinstate weapons ban? >> you keep saying control. i think it's a bad word. what about regulations?

what about sensible gun laws that limit what you can do when you can do it, make it consistent with the constitution but also don't jeopardize everybody, and that's in fact -- >> so just take off the ones you would fight for if you were the president. >> well, i would fight for, number one, there is a loophole in the federal law requirement that says you have to have a background check. the loophole is called the gun show loophole. there was this concept that at a gun show, if you wanted to sell one gun and i just wanted to buy one gun, we wouldn't go through a background check because it was too complex. number one, it isn't xlefnlgts bo at any time too xlefnlgts most of the gun dealerships foek follow law to the letter. it's not onerous. the gun shows have evolved to you selling a gun to me to having 500 guns or 10 or 20 like me come in to buy guns from you. it's a ways to avoid the federal

requirement for a background check. number two, the background check database isn't kept up to date, and the president by executive order could certainly do something like that. there was a disaster, murder, six, eight months, a year ago, a military guy. the military knew he had psychiatric problems, never put that into the database outside of the military and goes and kills people, so populating the database, having -- making sure that you stop the gun show loophole. those are the kinds of things that congress can do, and enforcing the laws. the alcohol, tobacco and firearms division hasn't had anybody in half a dozen years running it, four years. the president hasn't fought hard for somebody. i know it's tough to get people through congress, approved in congress. the president deals with that all the time. this should be one of his number one priorities. >> how much are you prepared to spend in the future to counter the nra? >> well, i don't know how to answer that, but when i care about something, i care about

something. i think i have an obligation as an american and as a citizen, as a human being to help -- smoking is going to kill a billion people this century. i've put $600 million of my own money into trying to stop the tobacco companies from getting kids to smoke and convincing adults that it's not in their health. that's one issue. who knows with this. >> you're prepared to put a lot more money to support stricter gun regulations. >> wouldn't it be wonderful if we didn't have to do that? wouldn't it be wonderful if everybody just said, okay, let's just have some common sense here. we don't need assault weapons, military-style weapons with big magazines on the streets of our city, and we've got to make sure that people who don't have the maturity or the capacity, mental capacity to responsibly handle guns don't have them. >> mr. mayor, thank you. >> you're welcome. >> appreciate it very much. >> very tragic. a note here this morning. we reached out to all 31 pro gun

right senators in the new congress to invite them on the congress to share their views on the subject this morning. we had no takers. coming up here, big events like these often trigger a lively debate online. this tweet caught my eye from @michellelaw. one guy tries to use a shoe bomb and everyone at the airport now has to take their shoes off. 31 school shootings since columbine but no change. a provocative thought, and like mayor bloomberg just said what happened in connecticut going to be a catalyst for change in this and other areas. we'll talk about it with our special panel of key voices in this conversation after a short break. ♪

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coming up, before friday morning owe vents in connecticut a heated standoff was brewing on capitol hill over the fiscal cliff. that debate now seemingly on hold for the moment at least as washington remembers the victims. lowering the flags at the capitol and the white house to half-staff. the question now for our nation's leaders, mental health experts, law enforcement, gun rights supporters and opponents alike, is what now? how do we move forward? a special discussion on how to stop these massacres when we return.

we are back with a special edition of "meet the press." joining us for the rest of the hour, a special panel. a leading voice in the senate for gun control for the past two decades, senator dianne feinstein of california. author and former secretary of education bill bennett. georgetown university professor and sociologist michael eric dyson. former governor of pennsylvania and homeland security secretary under president bush and also a member of the virginia tech shooting review panel tom ridge. the president of the american federation of teachers, randi weingarten. and columnist for "the new york times" david brooks. welcome to all of you. as my wife and are trying to shield our young kids from news of this event, we realize that it's futile. this is not an exception. we cannot wish these events away. and i mention this robust social networking conversation that unites the country. and if there is one feeling, it is enough. so in that spirit, i want to have this conversation.

here is the recent history of school shootings in this country, public rampages. not all at schools. and the number of victims going back to columbine in 1999 all the way to portland, oregon, at a mall. three people killed there. so the context is just so alarming. senator feinstien, we talk about guns. it often overshadows the debate about mental illness. but vain of gun control in this country and presidential leadership, you heard from mayor bloomberg. this is how "the washington post" described the president's leadership back in july. i'm not going to take away your guns, obama promised in september of 2008. however, he advocated closing a loophole that allows for gun purchases without background checks at gun shows and for reinstating the assault weapons ban. obama kept his promises to gun owners but not to gun control advocates. the president signed bills allowing guns in national parks and on amtrak. he has not pushed for the reinstatement of the assault

weapons ban nor closed the gun show loophole. has the president failed to lead? >> i'm not going to comment on that. i can tell you that he is going to have a bill to lead on because as a first day bill i'm going to introduce in the senate and the same bill will be introduced in the house a bill to ban assault weapons. it will ban the sale, the transfer, the importation, and the possession. not retroactively, but perspectively. and it will ban the same for big clips, drums or strips of more than ten bullets, so there will be a bill. we've been working on it now for a year. we've tried to take my bill from 1994 to 2004 and perfect it. we believe we have. we exempt over 900 specific weapons that will not be -- fall under the bill. but the purpose of this bill is to get just what mayor bloomberg said, weapons of war, off the streets of our city. >> what makes you think it can pass? we've had tragedies before, and

nothing happens. >> well, i'll tell you what happened back in '93 when i told joe biden who was chairman of the judiciary committee that i was going to move this as an amendment on the crime bill. he laughed at me. he said you're new here. wait until you learn. and we got it through the senate. we got it through the house. the white house came alive in the house of representatives. and the clinton administration helped. the bill was passed, and the president signed it. it can be done. >> senator, we're having a little problem with your microphone which we'll remedy as we continue the conversation. david brooks, we immediately go after a tragedy like this to the gun control debate. more than a mental illness debate. as we look at the faces of these killers, in these recent incidents, what is the common thread that you find throughout them? they all appear to be young males, mentally -- at the very least mentally unbalanced. why do we so quickly move to the gun debate? >> first on the profile, we have had enough of this cases, we don't on this specific guy, but

we've had enough cases to get a profile what they tend to be like. they tend to be intelligent and have an extreme estimates of their own significance. something happens to them that damages that estimates and they feel they are not being recognized by the world at large, and they decide they are going to do something to make the world recognize them. and so they go out and do these terrible things. and at the moment they're doing them this is the happy of their lives. they feel the world is uncontrolled, and suddenly they are in control. and they are the hero in their own life story. and so we should acknowledge, a, they are extremely determined to do these things. and that they are essentially -- they spend the months before lost in a black hole of their own festering. and i think it's those black holes that we as parents and as mental health community have to try to fill before they turn into these monsters. >> bill bennett, if the president is convening a task force and had everybody on this panel there to talk about solutions, as you heard senator

feinstien say, does an assault weapons ban, does that have to be on top of the list? >> i think everything should be on the table. if you're going to talk about these things, you don't limit the range of inquiry. all of these topics, it seems to me, need to be brought up. the senator noted 940 exceptions. if you can get one of those 940 rifles, you can still do a lot of damage. i don't know how effective the assault weapons ban was from '94 to 2004. some people suggest it was t wasn't greatly effective. i'm not in favor of armor piercing bullets in these clips. i have my own position back in 1990 when i was drug czar on this. but it seems we have to put everything on the table. and as david said, very well, a lot of us are tired of hearing after the fact about the psychological problems that people had. the studies, in some cases it's much better document, cho's case in virginia tech. we saw this in tucson. we saw this this in aurora. can we do something before the fact, before these things take

place? well, there are privacy issues and issues of civil liberties. if you have very troubled people, and now there's a kind of new confessional in the land called the internet, there's probably a record. this guy probably was saying some of the things that he was thinking to somebody. and we need to get ahold of that ahead of time. >> governor ridge, what is your experience particularly with the virginia tech shooting aftermath? what does it tell you about where we need to start reacting, particularly to senator feinstien? >> i think everyone has really focused on a word you used. i think the country needs to have it. let's have the conversation. let's start with the act and pull back to the actors. there's a profile here. and in the cho case it was really rather dramatic. the privacy laws intersected with the inferior mental health delivery systems. what we know about many of these troubled young men, they often reveal their suicidal intentions. they often reveal their desire to kill. and so there's a -- we talk

about mental health generically, but that's not a conversation parents have with counselors, and we run to it after the fact. and so i think the fact that we need a national conversation -- it has to include -- it will include and it must include some arms regulation. it has to include mental health. it has to include the privacy laws. this is a conversation that has to be reasonable, rational. it's time for us to have that conversation, but we cannot exclude the mental health component. >> randi weingarten, the folks you represent, the teachers you represent, were in newtown and at this school. it has to be very difficult this morning. >> well, i'm going up there this afternoon. but, you know, this is the instinct of educators and public servants that in situations like this, they just serve and they protect. and that's what people have seen here. but let me just say three things really quickly. number one, in terms of parents, we have a whole bunch of resources now on our website, aft.org and share my lesson, another platform we have,

because you can't hide or shield kids from this. we have suggested to people don't have your kids watch tv all the time right now. but kids will have questions and fears, and we have to actually figure out how to reassure them in a reasonable way. number two, i want to go back to what everyone else has said. i think that this is a turning point here. i could hear it and feel it around in the last 48 hours. not just in the northeast. i see it from our colleagues all across the country. but it has to be a conversation and action about both mental health as well as gun laws. >> let me pick up on the gun laws. michael eric dyson, just the politics of this, which matter, you heard mayor bloomberg's criticism of the president. he campaigned one way, but he didn't push it. didn't lead. as a second-term president, prepared to make for what mayor bloom bloomberg called for, gun control, stringent laws his

number one agendaite snem? >> well, david, you don't lead in a vacuum. i'm a baptist preacher. you can preach the same sermon to one church at another church. and if the people are with you in the amen chorus, you'll have a much better result. the president needs an amen chorus in his congregation. i think that these public incidents, acute, dramatic, instigate and inspire people to say, look, enough with the hand-wringing. let's goat some public policy that can reflect our moral consciousness about what we need to do. there's no one at this table that would defend the ability of anybody to repeatedly shoot a child. we've got to talk about sensible gun laws that the mayor spoke about. what about banning these assault weapons? the ban expired in '04. what about the way we had to have the background checks and mental illness is serious. we still have a stigma on acknowledging the fact that i might be depressed. i might need a drug to help me out, i might need to talk to somebody, a priest, a rabbi, a psychiatrist.

we don't need cuts in medicare or medicaid to prevent people from seeking those kinds of psychological release. and we have to have the ability then to say to the president, the nation is now galvanized around this particular point. you must now use your bully pulpit to tell the story, the narrative that unifies us as a nation. >> bill? >> just a couple of things. there is something called a black hole of a deranged mind. i don't know how much we have studied cho. >> virginia tech. >> but we know he had these very serious problems. and i do want to say one other thing. there's something to be said for what we're doing as a nation. if the president wants me to be on the task force, i'd be glad to serve. we are mourning. the whole nation is mourning. that's an important moment. let the tears dry before we head off into all of these directions at once and let's not head off at once. the other thing is, let's remember the good things here. the heroism of those teachers and that principal. and i'm not so sure, and i'm sure i'll get mail for this, i'm not so sure i wouldn't want one person in a school armed, ready for this kind of thing. the principal lunged at this

guy. the school psychologist lunged at the guy. it has to be someone who's trained, has to be someone who is responsible, but, my god, if you can prevent this kind of thing, i think you ought to. >> go ahead, david. the senator on that point before we go to bake. >> can i just say one thing about the debate we need to have? this has become -- one of the problems with the debate is it's a values war. it's perceived as urban versus rural and frankly perceived as an attack on the lifestyle of rural people by urban people. and i admire mayor bloomberg enormously. there's probably no politician i agree with more but it's counterproductive to have him as the spokesperson for the gun law movement. there has to be more respect and more people frankly from rural and red america who are participants in this. >> can i say something about the urban? isn't it interesting, not as dramatic an incident as this, but not as, you know, dramatic in the sense what have happened but it's not as massive but it's far more devastating the constant urban drama that we deal with our children as well, who are losing their lives, who

are victims of profiling, racial profiling and police profiling, so that profiling doesn't seem to work. it seems to hype up our vigilance to say we're going to find out what were these problem citizens are and we focus on them. the problem is not what we see with the kids. let's look what happen with our people who don't get profiled and they murder our children. >> senator, quickly respond to that, the aspect of more guns being introduced, a national equation, part of school security needs to be armed guards on campus. >> is this the way we want america go? in other words, the rights of the few overcome the safety of the majority? i don't think so. i think america is ready. they are going to have an opportunity with this bill. i'm going to ask and spend my time and create a committee across this nation to support it. >> will the president speak out on favor of it, do you believe? >> i believe he will. look, we crafted the last bill. it was right out of my office, and we're crafting this one, and it's being done with care.

it will be ready on the first day. i'll be announcing house authorses, and we'll be prepared to go. and i hope the nation will really help. >> randi, let me take a break. we'll start with you when we come back. i want to come back and continue this and also introduce the other access. it's not just access to guns. it is a culture in which violence is routine and is considered routine. we'll discuss that as well with our group right after this. rou considered routine. we'll discuss that with our group right after this. eat good fats. avoid bad. don't go over 2000... 1200 calories a day. carbs are bad. carbs are good. the story keeps changing. so i'm not listening... to anyone but myself. i know better nutrition when i see it: great grains. great grains cereal starts whole and stays whole. see the seam? more processed flakes look nothing like natural grains. you can't argue with nutrition you can see. great grains. search great grains and see for yourself. for multi grain flakes that are an excellent source of fiber try great grains banana nut crunch and cranberry almond crunch.

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we're back with our round table. as i said, we even been monitoring. rupert murdoch said on friday, terrible news today. when will congress find the courage to ban weapons. from tom brokaw, our colleague who treated on friday, something that has been shared thousands of times his talk. it's not enough to talk about access to guns we also have to talk about a popular culture that treats graphic violence as routine. >> let me go back to this point. there are so many ways, access points into schools. schools have to be safe sanctuaries, so we have to stop

this routine view that having more guns will actually make people safer. so we are opposed to someone having access to guns and i would ask governor snider to veto the bill to say concealed weapons in schools would be okay. but this notion of we can actually do things in schools, we can actually have more guidance counselors, more social workers, psychologists all of whom have been cut. we can do more of these things to destigmatize mental illness and to have more access as well as a whole package. >> what was the point of counterterror? it was to hardin the targets, to limit damage. >> yes. you always try to reduce the risk, and think that's what bill's referring to and i think that's some form of it to reduce the risk. but i think the conversation

should start with the premise that our children -- no child is born violent. and so what are the experiences, pressures, whatever, during the course of that child's life that lead them to the path that they've taken at columbine, aurora, sandy hook. we know there's mental health problems, but we've got to peel away the different layers. i'm going to say this respectfully because i voted for your assault weapon ban. that's a start. but there's still so much more that needs to be done. mental health is a component of it. we haven't even started talking about the core rosive influence of the violent world, tv, video. in the military you learn targets may hit back. take a look at the folks at columbine, aurora, suddenly it's a different personality type. >> you don't think this is as core owesive as people -- >> i have thought video games

have played a role too. this has been studied. there have been hundreds over the decades and they haven't had any contact, they were older. i don't think is a sociological problem. i think it's a psychological problem and there are millions of moms and dads right now dealing with mental issues in their own family. say you're the mom of this kid. you don't know immediately where to go. there are places you can go which are the police or institution, but that's like stepping off a very steep kasim. where do you -- >> national alliance of mental illness says states have cut more than $1.6 billion in general funds from their state mental health agency budgets for mental health services since fy 2009, a period during which

demand for such services increased significantly. these cuts translate into loss of vital services such as housing, assertive community treatment, access to psychiatric medications and crisis services. >> it's exacerbated. here's the interesting point. bewould rather talk about somebody rapping about, singing about, portraying in a film about violence rather than the actual violence itself. so while we demonize it in pop culture, we have nothing about access to guns. it's the ready access to guns that led to this devastation and until we get the guns removed, the erotic intensity that's -- >> senator -- >> you're not going to get the guns removed. you may have careful legislation proposed by the senator, which may pass. you're not going to get guns removed. you do have this problem calls the constitution, there is a second amendment. let me finish my thought. i know, it doesn't say anything about assault weapons and that

wasn't the founder's intent and i agree with that. but it's not just right-wing senators who won't appear on television or zealots or the nra. you have more freedom in america. you have more freedom and there's more abuse of freedom in america. >> but you've got to have the ability to say, look, there's a wide gulf between the appeal of the amendment. bur and hamilton can have a fight but they didn't have an assault weapon. >> i think it's interesting. the national rifle association never brought the 94 assaults weapons legislation to court. they knew it would be sustained from the beginning and i believe this will be sustained as well. you know, all of the things that society regulates but we can't touch guns bill. that's wrong. >> did we get rid of assault weapons? i think we did. >> we'lli get in another break and come back in a moment.

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this conversation and debate will go on. wish we had more time. thank you all for beginning it. i want to close with it. we were preparing our discussion this morning and monitoring what has been, as i said, a robust social media. we came across the widely shared advice from none other than mister rogers of pbs. he said when he was a boy and saw scary things on the news his mother would say to him, look for the helpers. you will always find people who are helping. so this morning when any words

seem small, we offer our prayers to the families most directly hit. may god give you strength and at least you can know there is a country full of helpers here that can catch you when you feel like falling. that's all for today. if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." tonight president obama joins a community in grief. good afternoon. i'm chris jansing and i'm sitting just across the sfreet from newtown high school where local religious leaders have planned an interfaith service for this new england town that's trying to come to grips with what the governor has called the evil that came here on friday

morning, stealing the lives of 26 people at sandy hook elementary school, including, as is heartbreakingly well known by now, 20 first graders. the president will be participating in what has become an all-too familiar ritual in america, a public show of grief and comforting after a tragedy has hit all americans personally. what the president will find here is a community in deep stunned mourning as the parents of those first graders try to deal with their own pain while remembering the joy their children gave them for too brief a time. >> my daughter emilie would be one of the first ones to be standing and giving her love and support to all those victims because that's the type of person that she is. >> as the community grieves, police are continuing to try to answer the question why. well, just a short time ago they released chilling